Army expects to meet ‘06 recruit goal

WASHINGTON – The Army says it will meet its 2006 recruiting goal, pulling itself up from a severe shortfall last year.

The Pentagon’s largest service – and the one bearing the brunt of the burden in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – enlisted 10,890 people last month.

That brings the total to 62,505 for the year and puts the Army on course to meet its goal of 80,000 for the budget year ending next month, Jeff Spara, Army recruiting division chief, said Thursday.

“We are going to make the mission,” he told a Pentagon briefing, crediting an array of changes that included adding more recruiters, boosting pay bonuses and other incentives and changing policies on eligibility.

Spara challenged contentions that the service was lowering its standards for recruits because it has been stretched thin after three years of an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq.

“They are qualified medically, physically and morally to perform the duties that they are enlisted for,” Spara said.

An extra-hard push to sign up more men and women has been under way since the Army ended last year nearly 7,000 people short of its goal, the first shortfall since 1999 and its largest in 26 years.

Despite the expected success of this year, Spara said, next year is “going to be just as tough” as this one.